The King Is Dead

Macbeth :]

is it really about macbeth?

No, but it's got a lot of references.

I'm pretty sure it's about pussying out of suicide, or at least the start is: "The sight of the drop got me off the roof."

It could be about trying to escape something like - as quite a lot of AWS songs ultimately relate to - a fucked up relationship (or the burden of life in general) through suicide: "To finally admit... got another one of their own."

I also get the feeling the proganist's mind is telling the story, referring to himself (the mind) as King and his body is the city: "Put me in the back of an ambulance cause my city dies tonight."

The story itself seems like the mind's in a fucked up state and has done something stupid: "The knife, or the rope, or the lemon, this brain and I." in the name of "art". Then you sort of see as the song progresses him lying to his body ("I lie to myself, it's my right to do.") that what he did was fine, guilt slowly overtaking him until he realises what he's done to himself ("To wade through the virus of your lies.") ultimately ending up in the back of an ambulance slowly letting go of life ("the guilt is weighing down by arms" - life leaving his body). The story, if interpreted that was, is fairly similar to MacBeth in that respect - and the king references and guilt driving him mad fit pretty well, too.

As for what it means? I've no idea. I guess it's sort of showing one choice leads to a set of consequences you can't go back from - which fits in 100% with what Ruiner as an album was all about. Maybe a sort of blunt "this is what we're all about" track at the start to tell you?

Well, I'm really not sure.

P.S. The lemon is a reference to autoerotic asphyxiation for anyone puzzled on that. That's straight from the Q&A thread on the bands message board.

I love this song and this band pretty much.

I have no other contribution.

this could be about almost anyone who has tried to take something over more or less thats the way i look at it at least

Obviously largely based around suicide.

The song isn't about pussing out. If you notice, he decides not to jump off the roof, but instead to hang himself in the garage, hence why he's looking at it sideways.

It seems to me that the premise is this; he's made some dire mistakes, and wants to stop fucking things up. So he decides to kill himself.

Lines like "traded my life for art, the guilt is weighing down my arms" makes me think it may have something to do with the pressure of the music industry. "To absolve the joy from me, is to erase what made me a slave" seems to say "I used to love the idea of being a famous musician, but it's not what I thought it was and now I need to get away from it".

On the other hand, the line "And that your only one's got another robot to take the throne" points in the direction of relationships, and that maybe a girl left him for someone else. Maybe it has to do with both scenarios?

"Hey, the garage looks cleaner when you look at it sideways, from high"

Actually, a really humorous line.

I personally think this song is about the death of the singer's father. He was his king and maybe with being in a band and all the singer wasn't with his dad while he died, thus the guilt weighing down his arms for devoting his life to art. Maybe in the song he feels like commiting suicide for not being there for his father and he feels like thats the way he can make himself a king, like his dad.

i could be wrong but im almost positive the singer said at a show not too long ago in providence that the song is about a friend who committed suicide. it was the last song of the set and it was fucking amazing!

I think the first line is about autoerotic asphyxiation, like "The knife or the rope the lemon this brain and I," the knife to cut you down, the rope to cut off oxygen the lemon to jolt you back and your brain, that's why he drops in the next line. I don't know just an idea.